Den Mother
by BIFF1
Summary: After Rory is kicked out of her apartment she has nowhere to go. Thankfully Finn and Colin owe her a very big favor. They have a beautiful apartment near her work but can she stand living with them? Colin/Rory/Finn
1. The boxes call me names

**A/** N: Man I hope I can do their crazy pop culture riddled dialogue justice. This is a Rory/Finn/Colin story. I'm not sure who she's going to end up with, that's whats so exciting about writing this. I have to send out my eternal love to Iscah for their willingness to beta this unoffically. Still my hero.

**Den Mother: The boxes call me names**

New York, Rory loved New York.

Standing on the sidewalk in front of her ex-boyfriend's apartment surrounded by all her worldly possessions...that she did not love.

She stood there looking up at the building, feeling like she was on the wrong end of a romance movie.

"So did he throw all your stuff out the window?" Lorelei asked on the other end of the line, "Was he crying?" She was laughing and Rory could hear Luke in the background, asking her if he needed to go to New York. Rory smiled at Luke's fatherly gesture.

"Mom, can you stop laughing? He wasn't crying, I'm not even sure if he's in there. All I know is, when I left this morning, all my stuff was in the apartment, and when I got back, it wasn't, and my key doesn't work. What am I going to do? Where am I going to go?"

"Don't think about it today. Think about it tomorrow...at Tara." Lorelei practically swooned on the other end of the phone.

"Mom! It's not funny I'm standing on the street surrounded by boxes of books and suitcases. He even labelled the boxes..." Rory leaned down to look at her ex's tidy writing, "This box says Fiction, aka lies, aka every word that comes out of your mouth."

"What did you do?" She asked through stifled laughter.

"I honestly don't know, but if he labelled every box like this, I must have done something."

"Can you get a friend to help you, or do you want Luke to come up?" Rory listened hard to the background noises. She thought she could hear Luke pick up his keys.

"I'm sure someone can help me out. I'll be fine." Rory smiled, but it was strained as she looked at the label on another box, "Biographies – people you loved more than me."

"Call us if you need anything. Okay, honey?"

"Thanks, Mom." Rory hung up, and, sitting on a throne made of boxes, looked through her contact list.

Lucy – she had just moved into a tiny one room apartment, and frankly Rory didn't feel like sharing a bed with a girl.

Olivia – she had just moved out of New York with her shiny, new husband.

Kevin – he would never help her with something like this. He was her editor. He wanted her to stay alive, but they didn't have the kind of relationship that this kind of help required.

Grandma & Grandpa – that was a can of worms she was not willing to open.

Colin McCrae

Why was he still in her phone? She hadn't seen him in a year, when out of nowhere he had called her to bail him and Finn out of jail. She had, of course, gone down to the police station in question, paid the shockingly steep fee and drove them home. But, the car ride had been pretty silent, and after making sure that they got safely to their apartment, she left without a word.

A cold wind swept across the street, and she remembered how large and warm their apartment had been, and how much they totally owed her.

"Hello, love?" A carefree Australian voice came over the line.

"Finn?"

"Yes...Caroline?"

"Rory."

"Rory? Gilmore?"

"Yes."

"Is this a booty call?" Rory's mouth dropped in shock, but before she could say anything, Finn continued, "'I'm hurt you would call Colin and not me..." She could practically hear him pouting, "his loss...where are you?"

She told him the address.

"It's a little far, but I'll be there shortly, love." He hung up the phone and she stared at it, amazed both at Finn and at herself. At Finn for automaticly assuming that it was a call of less than pure motives, and herself for not correcting him. She supposed it would be easier to convince him to take her in temporarily in person.

She didn't have to wait very long. She sat on the boxes, refusing to look at them more closely and finding more terrible labels. She was incredibly pleased to find that Finn had arrived in an SUV.

"Hello love, what's all this?" Finn asked, getting out of the car and gesturing fluidly at the boxes and suitcases. He came up close to her and put a hand on her head like she was a small child, leaning down to look at the labels on the boxes. "Rory Gilmore – lying neglectful slut...well, well..."

She whipped her head around to look at the box. She hadn't read that one. It was becoming more and more clear what she had apparently done to get herself removed from her residence. "I didn't see that one"

"Okay, kitten, why am I really here?"

"I was kicked out."

Finn shook his head and played with a piece of her smooth brown hair. Rory blushed at his attention. She looked up at Finn-just the same carefree, handsome, flirt he had been in college, green eyes bright, and seemingly eternally amused. He was in the ruffled remains of a tuxedo, leading her to believe that he hadn't been to sleep yet. "And you want to live with me and Colin? How adorable."

Rory pulled his hand gently away from her hair, and stood up from the throne of insulting boxes. "I need a place to stay temporarily, and I remember your apartment being quite large."

"When have you been to the apartment?"

"When I bailed you and Colin out of jail..."

Finn looked confusedly out into space before the realization cleared his face."Oh the night of the drunken monkeys..." He looked oddly uncomfortable.

She had a feeling that was a lot more literal than it should have been, and it did explain why their bail had been outrageously expensive.

"This is everything?" She smiled as he leaned down to pick up a box, and then frowned when she discovered that that particular box named her a cold, unfeeling whore.

"I think so. At the very least, it's all that he threw out of the apartment..." She picked up a suitcase and followed him to the car. It had been surprisingly easy to talk her way into their house. She fought the impulse to create a pro/con list in her head. She needed to have a roof over her head tonight, and a physical pro/con list could come after that. Right now, the only item in her internal pro/con list, was printed in big, bright letters in the PRO column: NOT FREEZING TO DEATH!

She helped Finn pack the car with her worldly possessions before getting into the car with him.

After securing his seat-belt, Finn turned to the small brunette who had apparently not telephoned for a booty call.

"What?" she asked, nervously turning to look at him. Finn grabbed her chin and turned her face toward him, studying it, looking for something.

"You haven't cried. You're taking this very well."

Rory pushed his hand away, and turned in her seat, wishing he would start the car and leave. "Maybe the boxes are right," she whispered, staring blankly at the building that, until this afternoon, had housed her and a man she thought she was in love with. Finn started the car and headed toward the apartment he shared with Colin.

"Gilmore? What are you doing here? And with a suitcase?" Colin asked, his voice as clear and sharp as ever. He stood between her and the apartment, leaning causally against the door frame in what looked like a slept-in tux, his bow tie untied and hanging lazily around his neck. He smirked down at her as he drained his tumbler of an amber liquid she was sure was scotch. She remembered enough about him to know that.

"I..." Rory looked down, ashamed.

Finn came up behind her holding several small heavy boxes with Rory's name on them. Colin looked between them both, "I thought you were going out for a tryst, not a roommate." Colin turned away from the door and walked into the kitchen, refilling his tumbler with scotch.

"Well it seems that the saviour of The Night of the Drunken Monkeys got forcibly removed from her flat." Finn said, moving past the nervous Rory into the large apartment. He disappeared down a hallway, and she could vaguely hear him putting the boxes down.

"You can come all the way in, Gilmore." Colin smirked from the counter, where he was watching her, his blue eyes sharper and brighter than she remembered them. She cleared her throat, trying to force herself to be brave.

It was only Colin and Finn.

This nervous energy was just silly.

She put her suitcase down in the hallway, looking at Colin move around the kitchen, opening cupboards, looking in drawers.

"So, you got thrown out? Roommate, rent or other?"

"What?"

"Why were you thrown out? Late rent? Roommate troubles? Or other?"

"Oh um... I guess, a little of column B, a little of column C." It was at this point that Finn reappeared.

"Boyfriend tossed 'er, you can check the boxes if you want more." He smirked and exited the apartment, motioning for Rory to follow him.

By the time Rory and Finn got all of her things moved into the guest room, Colin had disappeared. On the nightstand of the room that was to be Rory's, there was a fresh glass of scotch and a house key.

"Well, I'll leave you to sort yourself out, love...long night." He smiled lopsidedly at her, gesturing to the remains of his suit. "If you get lonely tonight, my room is across the hall." He winked before he left her.

Rory sat heavily on the soft bed and pulled her phone out.

"Mom?"

"Oh-no, she's just in the bathroom. She told me to answer the phone if it was you." Luke sounded wonderfully uncomfortable with talking about Lorelei in the bathroom.

'Is that Rory!' Rory could hear her mother yell in the background, muffled, apparently from the bathroom door.

'Yes!' Luke yelled, away from the phone. "Is everything okay Rory? Do you need me to come get you?" He sounded worried, in that strained, trying-not-to-sound-worried, fatherly way.

"No, I found a place to stay for now. That's why I'm calling. Everything is fine." Rory took the glass of scotch off the dark wood and put it to her mouth. It tasted a little like rubbing alcohol, but it burned in a beautiful way down her throat.

"Are you okay?" Luke asked softly. His heavy, comforting voice wrapped around her and warmed her right along with the scotch.

"I will be..."

'Gimme!' She could hear her mother scramble for the phone.

'Did you wash your hands?' Luke asked, his voice distorted by the sound of the phone being wildly moved around.

'Of course!' "Sweets?"

"Hi, Mom."

"Where are you? Everything okay?"

"I'm fine. I'm at Colin and Finn's."

"Colin and Finn? Those jerk friends of Logan's?" She sounded astonished. "I thought you said you were fine."

"I am. They have a huge apartment and they owed me."

"From when you bailed them out last year?"

"Yeah... apparently I am the saviour of 'The Night of the Drunken Monkeys'."

"That sounds like it should be a kung-foo zombie movie...oh, that sounds great!"

Rory smiled softly at the idea of it, and drained the last of the scotch, "I have to get to bed, big day tomorrow."

"Oh of course, love you, pumpkin."

"Love you, honey bunny."Rory listened to her mother giggle a little before she hung up.

Rory took the empty glass to the kitchen before she turned in for the night. She closed her eyes tightly, blocking out the insults the boxes were shouting. Turning her face into the lush pillow, she cried herself to sleep.


	2. 143 year old scotch

**A/N:** I'm sure the readers of my tower prep stories are pretty upset with me but I can't help it I'm in love with this idea. Thanks again to Iscah, still my hero, I always look forward to reading your emails. They brighten up my day. So this ones a little shorter but it ended naturally and who was I to push it. Hope you enjoy

**Den Mother: 143 year old scotch**

Rory woke up around two in the morning, her face clammy and her pillow damp. She rolled away from the now soggy pillow, and with her head hanging off of the bed, watched how the lights from the street hit the boxes that lined the wall.

_Bitch, slut, whore, neglectful, unfeeling, lying, cruel_

The boxes screamed at her in Elliot's voice.

She had been spending a lot of late nights at the office, she had cancelled their vacation together in order to work on the Prescott scandal. Looking back she had done that a lot, pushed him aside for her job. She had just thought she had met the perfect person for her, someone who didn't mind taking a back seat to her career every once an a while. Perhaps she had shoved Elliot in the backseat too often, left him alone one too many times.

_Lying, neglectful slut._

Had she ever lied to him? Yes.

About coming home early, about where she was going, about who she was with - she hadn't been cheating on him, she had just been protecting her story.

It was becoming painfully clear, looking at those harsh but meticulously packed boxes, that she had been lying and neglectful, and probably unfeeling. A slut, however, was incorrect. She hadn't been with anyone but Elliot since they had gotten together three years ago. But, it didn't take a rocket scientist to see how he had jumped to that conclusion.

Rory groaned and pulled herself out of bed. She needed a drink.

She leaned out the door and listened for any signs of life. The last thing she needed was a confrontation with Colin and his sharp tongue, or for Finn to see she had been crying and try to comfort her in what would, no doubt, be a completely carnal fashion. Hearing nothing, she made her way to the kitchen and mimicking what she had seen Colin do hours earlier. She obtained a drink.

She sat on the counter with a bottle of what was no doubt an incredibly expensive bottle of scotch, and tried to drown out the boxes taunting.

An hour of blaming herself and wallowing in self pity later, she whispered into the night.

"I am a lying, neglectful slut..." She slammed back her drink and refilled her glass.

"So the boxes were right?" The voice was clear and deep and crisp, and could belong to no one other than Colin. She was amazed that his voice could still sound so sharp and well formed at three in the morning.

Colin leaned against the counter beside her and took the bottle of scotch from her. He looked down at it, and back at her.

"Are you at least enjoying my 143 year old scotch?" She was surprised to hear more amusement than annoyance in his voice.

"Yes." She slammed the drink and held out her glass in hopes of a refill.

Colin sighed and refilled her glass. She was surprised and incredibly happy until he pulled the glass from her grasp and drank it himself. He placed the bottle back in its home and turned to look at her. He leaned causally against the opposite counter, and a light from behind her caused his eyes to flash.

"So, what's wrong Gilmore?"

"Finn told you," She paused dramatically before continuing in a ridiculous and terrible Australian accent, "I was kicked out of my flat." She smirked, watching Colin try to smother his laughter

"Sure, sure, but why?"

"You read those boxes!" She swept her arm angrily in the direction of her room, "I'm a lying, neglectful slut; a cold, unfeeling whore; a self-involved, strumpet; a vain..." Her voice hitched and her body slumped over, unable to finish listing the boxes. She never should have dated a writer. They were too creative in their insults; too vicious in their cruelty. Him calling her cruel - that was the pot calling the kettle black.

"I read the boxes." Colin moved closer to her, his voice soft and almost sad. "that guy is an idiot Rory. You are not any of those things."

"Oh, but I am." She looked up, her voice shockingly bitter, "I am neglectful. I put my work ahead of him all the time. I cared more about a byline than him. He was right to throw me out."

The pain must have flashed across her face, because Colin closed the small distance between them and brushed the hair out of her face. The gesture was soft and shockingly intimate.

"Shh," he whispered softly, and handed her back her glass, trying to mend her broken heart with soft hands and expensive scotch. "His loss."

"Why didn't he just say something..." She emptied the glass and set it on the counter next to her. She rubbed at her once again crying eyes, turning away from Colin, ashamed.

Colin put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it softly. "Lets get you to bed..."

She nodded and slipped off the counter...and slid into a heap on the floor.

"That's not your bed, Gilmore," Colin told her softly, leaning down. "Come on." He scooped her easily off the floor and started down the hall with her in his arms.

When they got to the door to Rory's room, she suddenly came back to life, "No!" She put her hands against the door frame to stop Colin from crossing the threshold.

"What's the matter? This is your room."

"The boxes are taunting me."

"I assure you, they are not."

"They sit there at the edges of the room, and they mock me and insult me. Rory can't love anyone or anything but her job..." When Colin looked down at her, she was crying again.

Sighing, he turned away from her room and walked toward his own. The room was large and cold, and the walls, lined with books.

Colin put Rory gently into the bed, "Do you feel sick?"

Rory shook her head, but immediately it felt like it had been a bad idea. The formerly stable room had gone into a tailspin behind Colin. The tall, half-dressed boy pulled a garbage bin, seemingly out of thin air, and placed it close to the bed, "Just in case." He straightened up and disappeared from her view.

"Thank you," she mumbled, before finally drifting off again.

An alarm woke her up.

She slammed a hand down on it. "Elliot it's time to..." She turned to look at the rest of the bed. It was empty.

This wasn't her bed. This wasn't her apartment. This wasn't even her part of town.

Everything around her right now was Colin's. She saw snapshots of last night in her head; the half empty bottle of 143 year old scotch, the flash in Colin's eyes, the soft way he had spoken to her, the way he had carried her to his bed. It would have been romantic if he hadn't been Colin and she hadn't been drowning her sorrows.

Her mouth was that desert-dry that could only be accomplished from a night of hard drinking and no hydration. Grimacing, she looked over the edge of the bed into the garbage Colin had pulled close to her. Apparently, it hadn't been close enough.

She rolled away from the mess and dragged herself out of Colin's room.

When Rory opened the door to 'her' room, she found Colin asleep on top of the covers, a half a glass of scotch on the bedside table, and no insulting boxes.

She stood in the doorway, her heart swelling with the thought that he had spent all night emptying boxes.

"He woke me up in the middle of the night to unpack your room." Finn spoke quietly, slinging his arm around Rory's shoulders. His face was desperately close to hers. She turned to look into his tired green eyes, still sparkling with a childlike joy she thought would never truly die.

"He woke you up? Do you guys ever sleep a full night?"

Finn straightened up and walked toward the kitchen,"Not if we can help it, love."

Rory watched Colin shift in his sleep, wondering if he had always been kind, but she had been too distracted by his sharp words and ridiculous lifestyle to notice.


	3. A lot of coffee and a full English

**A/N: **I was distracted by The Killing and Soul Eater but I got it done and have already started thinking about chapter 4. Hope you all like it.

**Den Mother: A lot of coffee and a full English Breakfast**

"Benji, get me a coffee pot and coffee," Rory told her secretary, pushing her sunglasses away from her eyes to look at the rail of a man.

"Is everything alright Ms. Gilmore?"

Rory pulled the dark lenses back over her burning eyes and stumbled towards her door, "Get the darkest roast you can find, and put it on my expense account." She disappeared into her office, leaning heavily against the door. She hadn't felt hungover until she had left the apartment building, but as soon as that morning sun hit her, she could feel every glass of scotch throb in her head. She had no idea how Colin and Finn seemed to function so well, running on no sleep and plenty of alcohol, maybe it was all the practice they got.

Rory collapsed in her desk chair and tried to focus on the piles of colour-coded notes in front of her.

She was four pots into her very own stash of coffee by the time lunch time came around. She could hear the newsroom rumble with the laughing and gossip that accompanied lunch at her office. She was hungry, but did she want to venture out into the rest of the building? Did she want to chance having someone ask if she was alright, if she was hungover, if she needed to talk? Honestly, she thought this was the first time in her life that she didn't need to talk. She had done enough talking to Colin in the middle of the night over some very fine scotch.

She peeked between the blinds of her office door window and spotted her target. At the other end of the office floor, was a very large, very kind looking vending machine. Waiting for the coast to be clear, she opened the door to her office and tried to quickly and causally make her way to her salvation.

She didn't get very far.

"Frankly, I'm appalled at you Rory." The voice was deep and thick with a lazy Australian accent.

"Finn?" Rory turned around and saw Finn sitting at Benji's desk,"Or should I say Spade?" he had his feet up on the desk and his arms behind his head, he looked like he was waiting for Mary Astor to involve him in a smuggling ring. With his black fedora resting languidly over his eyes she half expected him to call her 'doll-face' or at the very least a 'dame'.

"Spade?"

"Sam Spade... Private detective..." His face was blank, so, sighing, she continued, "What are you doing here Finn? And why are you Appalled?"

He flicked the brim of the hat away from his eyes, "Firstly, I am appalled that you don't have a female secretary that I can have my way with. I had to settle for giving that tall, skinny boy the eyes." Rory smiled as Finn winked at her, the mental image of Finn making a pass on Benji danced happily across her mind, "And, secondly, I am here for lunch."

"Lunch?"

"We're going for lunch, love." He smiled that lazy playful smile at her as he stood. He pulled her in close to him, and began to march her towards the elevator.

"I wasn't going to go out, I have a lot of work, I... Finn!" Finn practically pushed her into the open elevator. She stood there, helpless, watching the elevator doors slide closed. Through the closing gap, she could see almost the entire female staff staring at the elevator.

Oh, _that_ was going to cause trouble.

"Is this going to happen a lot now?" Rory asked, leaning helplessly against the wall.

"Yes." Finn smiled, fixing the collar of her shirt. She had a feeling that that would be happening a lot now, as well - his body in her personal space, his hands lingering on her just a little too long, just long enough to spark some sort of weird, nervous energy in her. It's just Finn, she told herself.

"Well, since you dragged me out of the office without my coat or purse, lunch is on you."

Finn took her to a small pub a couple of blocks from her building. As they entered the almost empty pub Finn pulled the hat from his head and spun it towards a hat rack, where surprisingly it landed safely. Rory looked up in awe at Finn, some weird combination of Sam Spade and James Bond. He waved to a busty redhead behind the bar, and seated himself. Obviously, he had been here many times before. The redheaded woman from behind the bar came up to their table.

"Pint of bitter and a steak sandwich, love?" she spoke with the lilt of a fading British accent. Which really made Rory wonder if the woman's name was Money Penny.

Finn smiled,"You know me so well, Kelsey, why not let me know you?" the suggestive nature of his words could be felt in the air. Rory had to look away from the boy's charming smile and blazing eyes. He was stepping up his, normally lazy, yet effective, game for this waitress. Then again, Rory recalled that he had always had a soft spot for redheads.

"Why Finn, don't be a prat in front of that beautiful girl you brought with you!" She turned to Rory smiling, warmly. "What can I get you, love?"

"Do you do a full English?"

"We sure do, darlin."

"That, and some coffee," Rory told her, pushing the sunglasses up into her hair.

Finn raised his eyebrows at the small brunette, "Are you going to finish a full English breakfast?"

"You're looking at a champion eater, Finny-boy. This isn't my first rodeo."

Finn held his hands up in surrender, laughing happily, "Still feeling the kick of that one-hundred-and-forty-year-old scotch?"

"One hundred and forty-three, and yes. Every time I move, I can feel all one hundred and forty-three years of ageing in an oak barrel thunder behind my ears." She put her hands to her head, as if she hoped that would somehow stop the thundering and throbbing in her brain.

"Oak barrel?" He quirked an eyebrow, and leaned closer to her. Rory was starting to wonder if it was all the European boarding schools in him that had made Finn lose his sense of personal space. Finn smirked."Has Colin been explaining what real scotch is to you?"

"I wrote an article on scotch a couple of years ago."

"Oh, Colin is going to love that. I don't think there's anything in the world he cares more about than scotch. Maybe me, but only on special occasions."

All this talk of Colin and scotch was bringing last night to the front of her throbbing brain. Rory hadn't spent time with Finn in a long time, but she could tell from the way he was looking at her, he wanted to know what had happened between her and his best friend last night. Something about him made her want to tell him, but she didn't want to divulge how upset she had been, or how tenderly Colin had dealt with her. She didn't want to talk about Colin carrying her like a princess to his bed, so she blurted out the first thing that came to her mind that didn't directly involve her interaction with Colin.

"I threw up in Colin's room and didn't clean it up." she blurted out.

Finn took in her worried expression and laughed quietly, waving the thought dismissively aside, "That's what we have a maid service for. Margo is very good at getting vomit out of things. We pay her extra for that."

It was good to know that she wouldn't be in trouble, or at any point need to clean vomit off of something. Her mother would be proud...or appalled...it was so hard to tell sometimes when it came to things like that.

"So, tonight Colin and myself are going to an 'event,' and I wanted to know if you would allow me to escort you?" his phrasing was strikingly polite, but his tone was devilishly suggestive, and he was sitting far too close to her. Emily Post and Dorthy Parker would both have been impressed.

His words washed over her, hot and shockingly carnal. His nearness had set off that nervous energy again, and her heart began to race.

"'Event'?" Rory tried to put off answering him. She didn't want to have to deal with a pouting Finn for the rest of lunch.

"It's some launch party for someone or other. It will be the same thing as last time. We'll go, get sloshed on free booze, pick up some women, and head back home." Finn did indeed look quite bored of the whole ordeal. He paused briefly to flash Kelsey a smile, as she put their orders on the table, and when she had retreated, he began again, "I would much rather take you home then some twat I meet at the party."

"I am not going to sleep with you Finn." Rory smiled, digging in to some eggs on her giant plate.

"How do you know that? The day is still young, kitten."

Rory sighed, picking up her seventeenth cup of coffee, "I have no desire to go to this 'event' with you."

"What about with Colin?"

Rory quirked an eyebrow. Finn really was an odd duck. Was he really asking if she would consider having 'relations' with Colin McCrae? Was he really asking if she would consider some sort of weird _Three's Company_dynamic?

She drained the cup of mediocre coffee and started again, "I have no desire to go to this 'event' with you OR Colin. I will be working late tonight on my story. My deadline is tomorrow."

"You are choosing work and responsibility over a night of passion with one, or perhaps both of your new roommates?" He shook his head in disbelief."I will never understand you, Rory Gilmore." He ruffled up her hair lightly before turning on his steak sandwich.

They chatted about nothing in particular as they ate. Much to Finn's surprise, they finished about the same time, and Rory's giant plate was spotless. He walked her back to her building.

"I can make it up to my floor without an escort, thanks." She shook her head, trying to push him away from the elevator. She was going to be the topic of enough gossip as it was. She didn't need Finn to fuel any more. Just looking at him in his tailored dark suit, fedora and his ruffled hair, she knew Carol, the office gossip, would have a field day with him - this tall, dark, handsome and foreign stranger that had swept Rory away.

"Fine," Finn pouted, standing firm against her pushing. Once she gave up and stood facing the elaborate elevator doors, Finn had his way with her hair. He ran his fingers through the soft tresses and absentmindedly began to braid her hair. Rory smiled softly at Finns soft, childish touch, but her heart began to pick up speed every time his fingers grazed her skin.

"We wont be home most of the night, love, you have your key?" Finn put down her hair and smoothed the braid.

"Yes, have a good time," She turned to look at him as she got into the elevator, "call me if you need a ride...or bail."

As soon as Rory stepped onto her floor, she knew that Carol had been working overtime. There was the rush of secretive voices around her as she walked towards her office. She cursed her office for being so far away from the elevator bank. When she finally got to her office, Benji was sitting at his desk doing correspondence, with a face as pink as the inside of a watermelon.

"Sorry for him, Benji." Rory put a hand comfortingly on his shoulder. Benji turned his bright brown eyes on her.

"Who was that?" he spoke with awe and nervousness colouring his voice. Taking in Benji's nervous and flustered appearance this long after Finn had left, she began to wonder if Carol was right and Benji was a friend of Dorothy.

"My friend from College. His name is Finn."

"Will he be back?"

"Hopefully not." Rory sighed, knowing that that wouldn't be the case. Once back into her fortress of solitude, she started the much needed organization of her article.


End file.
